Hawks run at Rebecca Farm

It was hot and windy but the course was grassy with gradual hills; all in all, a pretty good tradeoff for cross country running.

Fighting off the effects of the heat and running through the wind, the Thompson Falls cross country team had a great day at the Kalispell Invitational run on the grounds of the scenic Rebecca Farm horse-jumping facility Friday in the varsity, junior varsity and junior high races.

Highlighting the high school varsity's efforts, Josey Neesvig won tenth place in the girls' race clocking a personal best time of 21:23. Excelling in the junior girls' race, Ellie Baxter won fifth place (among 119 runners in 10:17) and Hattie Neesvig placed eighth (10:26).

"Josey ran a great race. Her strength and advantage is her focus and drive in the last half of the race," coach Sarah Naegeli said. "And our junior high runners had great first races of the season."

Rachel Ribeiro was next in for the Hawks in the girls' varsity race, placing 44th in 24:30, Megan Baxter clocked 29:19 and Roni Hanks 33:07.

Justin Morgan led the Hawk boys' varsity runners, winning 56th in 20:12, Erik Melendez finished in 21:23, Nathan Burwig 21:39, Wyatt Griffith 23:17 and Nick Viera 24:51. In the JV boys' race Ben Beauchman timed out in 23:49, Marc Boyd in 27:09, Ben Croft 30:38 and Daniel Ryan 30:52.

Melendez and Beauchman ran personal best times at Rebecca Farm.

Izzy Helmer (35:55) and Reagan Hanks (37:36) ran in the girls' junior varsity race.

Faith Palmer (13:24) and Madison Toyias (16:06) also ran well in the girls' junior high race and Cael Thilmony (11:11) was the only junior boy running for Thompson Falls in Kalispell. Thompson Falls' junior high coach Sarah Stover was impressed with her charges, saying "I am so proud of the way these runners performed! What a fun first meet!"

Hawk harriers were scheduled to compete in the St. Ignatius Invitational Tuesday but results of that meet were not available at press time. The running Hawks' next meet is the Ronan Invitational at the Silver Fox Golf Course in Pablo Saturday.

"That course has hay bales to jump and some other fun additions," Naegeli said, "so that should be a fun change for us."